This invention relates to providing a system for improved hazardous-environmental diving systems. More particularly, this invention relates to providing systems designed to increase diver safety in high-risk environments.
Military and professional divers are frequently exposed to contaminated waters in the course of carrying out routine duties, as well as operations arising from acts of terrorism, accidents, and disaster recovery operations. During recovery from a terrorist attack, such as on the USS Cole, dive operations after a ship wreck or aircraft wreck often necessitate dive operations in mixtures of water and jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, or fuel oils.
Current diving equipment is not designed to adequately protect a diver from exposure to contaminants in the water. Many dive environments are so hazardous that existing diving equipment can deteriorate to the point of failure in a matter of minutes, especially when exposed to contaminants such as diesel oil. This exposes the diver to hazardous chemicals and compounds with adverse health effects, as well as threatening nominal operation of the very equipment on which the diver's life depends. Chemical warfare agent (CWA) contamination, biological warfare agents (BWA) and disease from pollution such as sewage in harbors are also of special concern; even low agent concentrations in the water are, in effect, amplified by the high pressure and full immersion conditions experienced by the diver.
In recent tests, industry standard dive helmets, including the popular Kirby-Morgan MK-21, equipped with double exhaust valves, failed to prevent intrusion of water and aerosols when the diver exhaled or when the diver's head moved from the upright position at any operational depth.
In addition to the immediate dangers present from terrorism, accident and disaster recovery operations, military and professional divers are frequently exposed to contaminated water in the course of carrying out routine duties. It is now evident that divers are at risk from chronic exposure to contaminated water in harbors, ports and waterways. Studies have shown that naval divers with multiple exposures to waterborne carcinogens are two times more likely to contract cancer then control populations.
The efforts to help in rescue and cleanup in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina further illustrated problems related to the lack of “chemically hardened” dive equipment. Because industry-standard dive equipment is inadequately protective for use in chemically contaminated waters, responding divers working in the region reported delays to critical diving operations while evaluations of water conditions were completed.
Clearly, there exists an immediate need for improved “chemically hardened” dive hardware technology across the entire diving community. Furthermore, systems allowing the retrofitting and upgrade of existing dive hardware would provide a reasonably quick means for implementing such hazardous-environmental diving systems.